


The General's Apprentice

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6855739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is Luke's padawan, learning the way of the Force as the Jedi know it, all daring swordfights and flashy acrobatics. Finn has chosen a different teacher, and a different way...</p>
<p>Beta by my Best Beloved, he of the plotbunny wrangling, spotter of typos and encourager of Goluxes, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The General's Apprentice

At first, Finn spends all his time tagging along after the General because she wants to have him easily available so she can pick his mind about the First Order any time she thinks of a question, but by the time Rey finally returns with Luke Skywalker, Finn is thoroughly ensconced as Leia Organa’s apprentice. Rey learns the big, flashy, Jedi ways of doing things with the Force, all shining lightsabers and glory; Finn learns how to move one small thing and through it move the galaxy. A single stone can start an avalanche, and Leia teaches Finn how to choose the perfect stone.

Rey’s way looks more fun, and honestly she seems perfectly happy with it: flinging blaster-wielding enemies away from herself, stalking deadly and gorgeous with her lightsaber in her hand, taking the _Falcon_ out on daring, dangerous missions with only a Wookiee for backup.

Finn’s way is...quieter. Finn moves the blasters’ aiming point a millimeter or two, and the blaster bolt misses him entirely, but he does not miss the shooter. Finn builds himself a lightsaber because Rey insists, but it hangs on his belt mostly-unused, half-forgotten until the moment he truly needs it and then it is swift and ruthless in his hands. Finn leads half a dozen elite ground troops in swift, silent missions, tearing through First Order bases so quickly the commanders in their Star Destroyers have no time to respond; and where Rey gives commands, backed by the Force in her voice and the indomitable will that has kept her alive, and her enemies obey, Finn shrugs and knocks them out with a flick of Force-shining fingers, and his troops bundle the important prisoners into their transport and bug out before anyone even notices. Finn learns to read the Force, to hear the way it flows, and to nudge it, just slightly, into the path that he desires; he learns to infuse it into his words, not to coerce or to command but only to ensure that every one is heard and remembered.

And Finn learns to heal. It’s hard - it involves long hours with a datapad, even longer hours with Doctor Kalonia, learning every nuance of bone and flesh and blood and how they fit together, learning to _understand_ the way a body works with just the touch of his hands and the feel of the Force flowing through him - but oh, it’s worth it the first time one of his troops goes down to a blaster bolt and Finn, the enemy shooter _thoroughly_ neutralized, goes to his knees beside the Resistance fighter and knits her skin and bone and flesh together with a thought, leaves her weak but whole in a pool of her own blood, and rises to find his troops looking at him with awe and wonder and utmost respect.

Rey can keep someone alive, pouring the Force into them like water into the sands of Jakku, and does, the day Chewbacca takes an injury that ought by rights to slay him; but it is Finn who knits the Wookiee back together, and leaves him hale and well.

(Finn knows that he could kill, too, more easily even than he can heal: if he can urge blood to flow, how much easier to make it stop? If he can knit a bone together, how much easier to shatter it? But he will not use this power that way - not unless he absolutely must.)

It would be easy for someone to think that because Finn’s way is not as flashy and attention-getting as Rey’s, that it is somehow less worthy (though Rey never thinks that, never so much as _imagines_ thinking that; she knows Finn too well to think he would choose a dishonorable path); but anyone who thinks that way is swiftly disabused the day Finn and his squad are pinned down by an unexpectedly large group of Stormtroopers who have managed to capture a downed and dazed Poe Dameron, and Finn strides calm and easy into the hail of blaster bolts, his own blaster steady in his hand.

Not a single bolt hits him; they miss by millimeters, sometimes, but they miss, and it is his will that sends them wild, leaves him unscathed in the middle of a rain of fire; and his own shots go true and true and true, never once missing their mark, until he reaches Poe’s side and the last remaining Stormtroopers break and run from the untouchable marksman who has defeated them.

Poe, it should be noted, attempts to swoon like a holovid heroine into Finn’s arms, and then has to explain holovid heroines, much to the amusement of Finn’s cadre; but they must all admit that if the swooning didn’t quite work out, the heated, half-desperate kiss certainly did.

Leia just laughs when she gets the news. “Yes, well, like master like apprentice I suppose,” she sighs. “Dashing young flyboys were always _my_ weakness too.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] The General's Apprentice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13100064) by [imaginary_golux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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